> The government said the new laws will "make it as easy as refuelling a petrol or diesel car today".
So full charge in a couple of minutes?
Seriously, electric cars are destined to create a new under class - those who don't have a house which has a driveway where they can charge. Apartments will have inadequate charging, terraced and other houses will have to share some sort of public, possibly vandalised service which will be considered the personal property of those who live near it.
If houses are guaranteed to have their own charger, surely that reduces pressure on the public infrastructure for people who don't have their own charger?
> Seriously, electric cars are destined to create a new under class
That's the "plan" (not actually an organized plan, but emergent behavior). All of this stuff, bike lanes, banning plastic stuff, emissions and electric car rules, carbon tax, it means nothing to all of us that are well off but it pushes the very poor even deeper under. We really only want to see them when they bring us a meal or package and otherwise to keep away from us and our city life, and to not become affluent enough to get in our way. I think we're heading back to what I see in old British shows the aristocrats were waited on by dirt poor domestic staff that cost almost nothing relative the the wealth of the rich. In other words, much greater inequality. Every rule that gets implemented, however well intentioned, only works to increase this inequality.
Maybe the next step is to force high rises to include parking garages stocked with chargers, instead of externalizing that cost to the surrounding neighborhood?
I'm with Mr Childs, quoted way towards the bottom:
> "New housing should also include secure cycle storage and access to high quality public transport, to provide real alternatives to driving and help cut congestion," Mr Childs added.
Imagine if every time a new build estate was built it was required to join-up to some existing cycle infrastructure (sort of like how they connect to the existing utility infrastructure). That would require cycle infrastructure in the first place (now just blue paint on a road), but we can dream.
The cost to run the equivalent of a dryer outlet (conductors and conduit of some sort if required by the local AHJ) to a garage is minimal at build time, but more expensive to retrofit. Most EV owners will charge at home, and more than a dozen jurisdictions have deadlines for bans on new fossil fuel vehicle sales. Seems like common sense policy.
So full charge in a couple of minutes?
Seriously, electric cars are destined to create a new under class - those who don't have a house which has a driveway where they can charge. Apartments will have inadequate charging, terraced and other houses will have to share some sort of public, possibly vandalised service which will be considered the personal property of those who live near it.